Pulse
by nlizzette7
Summary: "And she can feel her knees buckling because she – a girl who has always woven every intricate detail of her life exactly to her liking – is not prepared for this. She has never been prepared for Chuck Bass." / Prompted on Tumblr. CB, One-shot.


_Set between 2x14 and 2x15, a fluffier alternative to Chuck's disappearance._

_(Prompt: CB + Hospital Staff)_

* * *

**Pulse**

The name "Blair Waldorf" has never been synonymous with volunteering.

Even she'll admit that it sounds a bit arrogant, but there are supposed to be people who volunteer to do her volunteering for her. It's quite logical, really. How is she supposed to balance a stellar 4.0 and an even more phenomenally executed social agenda while getting her hands – she scowls just thinking about it – dirty?

But apparently, having her minions walk up Lexington to drop fifties into hollow coffee cups simply doesn't exhibit enough _character-building_. Not for Yale, and especially not for headmistress Queller.

"Can't I…throw another gala for the duck pond?"

There is a heavy sigh from the gray-haired woman.

"Or a social to raise money for – "

"Blair," the woman cuts in crisply, hands clasped together atop her oak wood desk. "The best way to impress our Yale representatives is to show that you're capable of more than the occasional cocktail hour for ailed pigeons."

The brunette scowls. "Ducks, too."

"Mount Sinai is a prestigious institution, and they'll be more than ecstatic to have our top student on hand." Queller stares straight at the glowing computer screen at her front, clicks on a link that throttles a machine behind her to life. "They'll be expecting you at eight AM next week." She smiles, hands Blair a stamped sheet of paper. "Have a wonderful winter break, Miss Waldorf."

So here she is, hands crossed over her chest, footsteps quick behind a bitter male nurse who's barely paying her any mind as he leads her down a stark white hallway. It smells of antibiotics and public bathrooms, and Blair doesn't like it. She doesn't like that she was expecting something closer to the cast of _Grey's Anatomy_ and got a Humphrey look-alike in a stained medical coat instead. And she _especially _hates her uniform, the white and red stripes down her torso screaming that she's a candy-striper to anyone who cares to look. The ensemble might have been thematically cute – could she not _feel _the polyester chafing her skin with every step.

But Chuck would have enjoyed it.

She blinks, picks up her pace as the memories chase after her, the missing boy's hands on the nape of her neck, the sweetest obscenities whispered into her ear whenever they made love. But she won't think of him. She decides this as she bites down on the inside of her cheek, and the taste of blood reminds her that he's probably off and delirious in some brothel, highly intoxicated, already forgetting the virgin in a limo he could not even take abroad with him.

"Hello?"

Blair stares back at a gruffy beard, a receding hairline. The nurse looks terribly bored now as he gestures his fingers toward the empty medical room in front of him. Blair narrows her eyes, takes a half-step back before beginning to ask, "What do I have to do – "

"Sit, wait, ask, write, leave," the man drones. "Fill in the blanks on the form. You're capable of that, aren't you?"

Blair rolls her eyes, resists stamping her foot. "_Of course _I can do that." She's filled out plenty of Bloomingdale's credit card sign-ups, so why should this be any different? "But, I don't have to touch anything, ri – " Before she can so much as finish her sentence, the man shoves a metal clipboard into her open palms, spins on his heel before unceremoniously strolling down the hall from where they came.

Blair's alone now, left to pick the clipboard up between the very tips of her pointer finger and thumb, her lips parted in serious outrage as it clanks down against a black counter. She opts not the sit atop the adjoining stool beside it, bypasses the grimy medical tools to lean against the covered bed. She scrolls through her phone in her boredom, pretends she's not looking for updates about _him _on Gossip Girl's feed.

Blair is so lost in her distractions – adjusting her headband, reapplying mascara – that she does not notice when her first patient arrives, the intruder watching her purse her lips in front of a golden compact in silence. Finally, he clears his throat, she drops the mirror.

"No," Blair breathes, eyes set on the man before her, and she cannot look away. It's the same face she confronted in her bedroom days ago, tears in his eyes as she temporarily forgave him for the unforgivable. Her mother had been exchanging vows right underneath their feet. Just there had been love at its peak. Just upstairs had been love at its downfall.

But, of course, Chuck had left the sheets cold that night, with only a note that couldn't possibly mean anything after everything they'd been through, a blow that she could not possibly feel over all the other wounds. And now –

He is here.

"You – " Blair's throat constricts, her gut churns, and she has never felt this dreadfully happy to see someone who has destroyed her so much. She realizes that he's wearing the same black attire from his father's funeral, dark shirt unbuttoned and dirty, hair still grown past his ears. His skin bruises purple beneath his eyes, and his full lips are scarred, are chapped, are nothing like what she remembers.

Blair braces herself against the bed before whispering, "What are you doing here?"

Chuck says nothing, just scans her little uniform before settling on her face, only a ragged breath escaping his lips.

"What are you doing _here_," Blair elaborates, "in _my_ assigned room, during _my_ volunteering hours?" Her voice raises to the point at which she sounds hysterical. A passing janitor jumps as he stops in front of the room, narrows his eyes, glances at the two teenagers before pushing his mop forward again. Blair is nearly blind when she shoves past Chuck, hates that she still loves the smell of Scotch and cigarettes kissing apples and oak when she inhales. She shoves the door shut, turns the lock before whipping around to face him.

Chuck stares back, glances down at her hand. "Is that protocol?"

Blair doesn't answer him, doesn't care about germs when she picks up the clipboard again, snatches the pen from its holder to compose herself. She doesn't look at him, _can't _look at him when she orders, "Sit down."

He complies without hesitation, sits at the edge of the medical bench with all the suaveness that a broken man can muster up. She can feel him staring at her, but this won't be one of those times.

"Name?"

"Look, Waldorf – "

"_Name_."

Chuck blinks, fingers curling into the paper sheet beneath him. "Charles – " He winces, inhales helplessly for a moment. " – Bartholomew Bass."

Blair musters up the courage to look at him again, keeps her lips set in a straight line. "What's wrong with you?"

He chuckles at her aggressive tone. "Your bedside manner is touching."

"You think…that this is funny."

Chuck backtracks, smile faltering, "No – "

"There has to be someone else who can take care of this," Blair murmurs, sounding weaker this time. "You're not my problem." She shakes her head, shoves a curl out of her face. "Not anymore." She goes to turn the lock as she concludes, "In fact, you were never – "

"It hurts," Chuck manages to choke out. Blair halts her efforts to escape, one hand drops to her side, and she can feel her knees buckling because she – a girl who has always woven every intricate detail of her life _exactly _to her liking – is not prepared for this. She has never been prepared for Chuck Bass.

"My chest aches," Chuck explains. "There might be something broken, or – " Blair turns just in time to catch sight of him shove a hand through his hair. "I was just beginning to feel again, and now I'm dead…inside." He does not sound like himself, does not run as smoothly as he once did. He is lost and unhinged – he does not know what to say. "And my stomach."

Blair draws back. "What about it?"

"Last year…I was diagnosed with butterflies." Chuck offers a smirk, clutches his waist as he does, and Blair realizes that he's lost weight, has been substituting his favorite éclairs and breakfast platters for vices that won't even get him through the next week. "She was wrong."

Blair swallows. "She?"

"The girl that I," Chuck cuts off, "liked."

"Liked," Blair echoes.

He nods, rolls the sleeves of his haggard garment up to his elbows. "Perhaps it started off as some insolent crush." His jaw twitches, and she wants to soothe the tension away. "But those butterflies pull quicker now. They beat harder, and I'm enveloped in all that she is. In – all that she makes me feel. And every time I try to run away, it's like they catch fire, burn me down until I forget why I could ever deign to leave her."

Blair suddenly cannot be this far away from him. She steps, steps closer, catches his hand and presses her eyes shut when the jolt of electricity momentarily paralyzes her. Her small fingers cannot completely encircle his wrist, so she settles for a quick skim, presses them into his pulse point and catches his gaze as they wait.

_One _

_Two_

_Three – _

"You're still alive," Blair finally murmurs, studying the shadows his lashes cast upon his cheekbone.

"Barely," he murmurs back.

"You're still alive," she repeats, her voice wavering, eyes wide in her sudden urgency. Her nails dig into his skin, and Chuck allows it, allows her to take what she needs. She digs harder, shoves a weak fist into his chest and lets a single tear fall. "I thought you were dead, I thought you were _dead_, or – " Blair collapses against his chest, and the paper crinkles underneath their weight. His arms come around her, and he lets her cry, presses his mouth into her hair but does not dare to kiss her. She is hysterical, sobbing into the skin of his neck, "I just wanted to be there for you, Chuck."

"I know."

"You _left_. It could have been you and I facing anything, everything. I gave up, I said it first – "

"I know."

"And then you come back, you won't let me go, you won't let me be."

"Because I can't," Chuck admits, sets his head against her shoulder because he can no longer bear the weight of himself alone. Machines whisper a steady hum outside, wires and chords tethered to failing skin, but the only thing keeping him alive is the girl shaking in his arms, and if he doesn't say it, if he doesn't do _this_, there won't be anything else.

_One _

_Two_

_Three – _

"I love you."

She tenses against him, jerks her head up. But Chuck only holds her chin, forgets where they are, forgets all the rest.

"So much," Chuck finishes. "And _that_ is why…I can't let you be. I'm selfish, and I'm unforgivable." Blair parts her lips to disagree, but he silences her with a darkness in his eyes that she simply cannot fathom. "But I love you, and I need you, and I will keep pulling you back." He shakes his head. "Maybe that's wrong, but at least you know." He lets her go, holds her waist away. "Now you know."

He's barely finished when she grasps his chin, pulls his lips to hers, presses kisses to his chin, to the corner of his mouth, so desperately that she cannot breathe, but she doesn't want to. She doesn't care for something so mundane when his fingers are form fists in her curls and draw her closer with a secure tug.

When Blair breaks away, she's smiling, cheeks still wet, heart less broken. And she says, "You taste…terrible."

Chuck finds it in himself to grin genuinely, to laugh as he stares down at her little dress. But his laughter dies, as it always does, and he squints as if he can't believe the words when he says, "My father's dead."

"Chuck – "

"I don't want to feel this anymore."

"But you're going to," Blair whispers. "You don't have to numb this – " Her fingers stroke down the fabric covering his chest. "I'll help you. I'll help you hold on to it." Her breaths are easier against his skin now, and he cradles the back of her head with one hand, lips pressing into her hairline.

"Waldorf…" He sighs, a long, cascading exhale – like he can finally breathe. "I was hoping you'd say that."

_Fin._


End file.
